


Always With Me

by lutzaussi



Series: One Summer's Day/Always With Me [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Dogs, F/M, Foxes, Fuck Canon, Gen, M/M, Mentions of past suicide, Slight self-loathing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-14
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-02 01:17:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8645527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lutzaussi/pseuds/lutzaussi
Summary: Kakashi expected to be in the ANBU until, well, he died, but the old bastard seems to want better for him than that. Within months of leaving, he has a genin team and he is not as alone as he thought he was. And there's something about that chuunin teacher, too...





	1. Chapter 1

Kakashi is no longer young when Obito dies and he joins the ANBU--or, perhaps it would be more appropriate to say that while his body is young, his mind and the thing that Gai insists is a “soul” that inhabits his form are no longer youthful. He is so tired, once Obito and Rin and their sensei are dead and the only thing--the only figment of his life that he has to hold onto--is the tiny, defenseless baby who has no idea what his parents did, what his body contains.

The old bastard doesn’t let him see the boy though, for several years. Years full of his ANBU team forming and scattering and reforming again. He meets fascinating people during that time--some of them younger than him, fresh-faced jounin newly recruited to the ANBU, and some older, particularly a really gnarled old woman who runs perhaps the shadiest tea shop he has ever seen just outside the former Uchiha district. It is in her tea shop, anyway, that he meets a new member of his team. Wakahisa Yasu is strange--hard to read, quiet, and a seemingly mediocre shinobi when he first joins. But he turns out to be quite cunning, in his quiet way, one of the few notable members that Kakashi occasionally wonders about after they're gone.

And it isn’t long before he is moved off of Kakashi’s team, onto the main search-and-rescue, and Kakashi all but forgets him, like those came before and those who come after. He more than has his hands full, as it is. The ANBU teams are supposed to be permanent assignments, but with most teams constantly sporting holes based on what their jobs involve, ‘permanent’ is a shitty word to use. He goes through three support nin in the span of one week before he flickers into the Hokage’s office and demands a stable system or else he will demote himself out of the ANBU.

(the old man gives him a look that says, “Sure, you’ll leave. When and only when you’re forced out by someone else, that somebody else probably being me.”)

And the next week he gets two support nin and keeps them for the next year until, well, the demotion that he threatened actually materializes. He doesn’t view it as a demotion, necessarily--hell, a demotion would be getting kicked out of the ANBU altogether--but he’s no longer the head of his own team, relegated to high-level infiltration missions and guard duty, whenever he’s in Konoha. And he’s in Konoha an annoying amount. Gai somehow knows through telepathy or some bullshit whenever he’s in town, and drags him out with their yearmates to bars and barbeques. But for the most part, Kakashi keeps to himself. He has his apartment, his books (no, despite the general belief, they aren’t porn--at least most of them aren’t), and a whole cadre of plants that require his attention. The plants were not--well, he can’t really remember when they started accumulating. It is a bad habit of his, whenever he goes to the market on Sundays (if in town) to always check all of the stalls and there are always plants that manage to find their way into his hands. Gai pesters him mercilessly about it, in that over the top way that Gai goes about life, but Kakashi for the life of him cannot be annoyed with the other man.

But-- _ but _ \--now that he is no longer a team leader, he occasionally draws shifts checking up on the boy. Not often. More likely he is shadowing the Hokage, or, on rare occasions, Danzo, if not out of the village on a mission. After the fiasco that was Orochimaru’s escape from Konoha--and he’s contentious over terming it an  _ escape _ \--the old man sees him as one of the few suitable to peek in on Danzo when it is needed.

But--the boy. Naruto looks exactly like Min--like his father, but every face he pulls, every move and action his small frame makes, is like a carbon copy of Kushina. Kakashi contents himself, halfheartedly, that in the end he is doing as he promised her, he is taking care of her son. By the boy’s fifth birthday, the old woman who had taken care of him during his infant years is dead, and he lives in the large apartment they had shared alone and Kakashi tries not to think about that, but sometimes it finds it’s way into the front of his mind and he can’t stop thinking about it. It hurts to think that this boy, his sensei’s son, is so alone in a world that should see him, if anything, as the son of heroes, and a hero in his own right for the burden he bears. It is a very small relief that a pink-haired girl occasionally breaks into the apartment and cleans out the fridge, leaves fresh vegetables and fruits for the boy who never seems to realize. Kakashi could never do that himself.

So, yeah. He tries not to think about it.

And he’s trying to not think about it one night after checking in on Naruto and reporting to the old man, but failing quite miserably, when he feels a distantly familiar chakra signature hanging next to one of his trapped windows. Kakashi pauses atop the apartment building two over, tries to sort through his mind and figure out who it could be. It obviously wasn’t Gai, and he was reasonably sure he would be able to identify most of the other jounin that Gai ran with, so it wasn’t one of them. Maybe...maybe one of kids that had been on his ANBU team at some point? He doesn’t spend much time thinking about it, throws all caution to the winds and heads for his apartment.

To his surprise (and, after forgetting the man’s name twice) he finds that Wakahisa Yasu is clinging to the windowsill, looking bored and maybe annoyed. Kakashi takes his time to unlock the door, relock it and reactivate the traps, and toe his sandals off. It takes less than a moment for the traps to disarm when his hands and chakra come into contact with the window, but Wakahisa still does not move.

“This is for you, if you don’t follow it I will come haunt you,” he says, in a generally bored sort of way as he hands Kakashi a folded slip of paper. Before Kakashi can do anything--open the paper, ask what the hell the other man is talking about, or even grab him--he flickers off, and across the village. 

Feeling rather righteous in his annoyance, Kakashi ignores the paper, leaving it on his coffee table as he wanders to the kitchen for food. What with the strange ANBU hours, he eats when he’s hungry and sleeps only when he has time, which isn’t often. But he has to report to the Hokage Tower again in the morning, so he figures he can eat and catch a nap before heading back out. There’s leftover stir-fry in the kitchen, and he eats it cold as he wanders to the bathroom, vaguely considering a shower before deciding, no, he doesn’t have time if he wants to sleep for more than an hour.

He does sleep, climbing into bed halfway through the stir fry and leaving it to eat in the morning. It’s strange, but he does appreciate the terrible hours, if only because it means he sleeps deeply, and doesn’t dream.

Early is the time he wakes up, and he checks the clock to learn he slept for only an hour and a half. Well, he would have time to shower, anyway, he considers as he resumes eating the stir fry, which, for sitting out that long, still tastes pretty darn good. After getting clean (a blessing of it’s own) he cleans up the kitchen and makes sure his weapons pouches are full before strapping them on, absentmindedly tucking the paper he had been given into one of them as he heads out of the window.

The Hokage Tower is blessedly silent and almost completely devoid of people when he arrives, fully suited and similarly silent. He views watching over the Hokage as babysitting, if the baby was an old man in charge of one of the most powerful ninja villages in the world. It’s the same principle, though, and sighs when he flickers in to find the old man doing those stupid logic puzzles that are scattered all over the tower. Kakashi ignores that, though, settles into his spot just outside the room, where he can survey everyone coming in from Shinobu’s desk. He likes the woman. She’s no-nonsense, tries to get things done and go home as quickly as possible, and if she goes home quickly, he goes home quickly.

There isn’t a whole lot that morning. The usual nin returning from missions come to check in, and Shikaku comes to talk about something important. Kakashi doesn’t pay attention to that, thinks about what food he wants for dinner, and if Miko would be willing to trade shifts so that he doesn’t have to watch Naruto for the third night in a row. He’s broken from that reverie of thought when a young man breasts the stairs and makes for Shinobu’s desk. He looks vaguely familiar in the way that most other nin in the village do, but there’s something about him--he stops at Shinobu’s desk, waits until she returns and asks, his voice tight, “Is the Hokage free?”

She looks confused and a little lost, but nods and Kakashi loses sight of them as they enter the office. He can hear what is spoken though, and he listens in with perhaps more interest than he should, though he misses the Hokage’s welcome.

“This was given to me by Wakahisa Yasu, to file with you,” the man says, and that ticks Kakashi’s curiosity. Wakahisa had not been particularly open about anything other than work--although, Kakashi supposed he was the same way--and this is the first he had heard of anyone in the village knowing him.

The Hokage speaks and his voice has a depressed tone that Kakashi has not often heard before that moment, “I am sorry you had to learn of it in this way. Wakahisa-san and his team are on their way to Kirigakure in order to save the last remnants of the Yuki Clan who petitioned us for help and refuge. It is likely that few of them will return.”

That--

Kakashi scrabbles the paper out of his weapons pouch as quietly as possible, unfolds it and reads, in cramped writing, “dog--when released go to compound packages there.” Ignoring the blatant terrible grammar, he sort of understands. When out of the ANBU, he needs to go to Wakahisa’s compound. Wait,  _ was _ there a Wakahisa family compound in Konoha? Kakashi doesn’t know. All he knows is that the clan is all but gone. They  _ have  _ to have a compound. He shakes his head, re-folds the paper and places it back in his weapons pouch. That is in the future, hopefully far in the future. He is so lost in thought that he misses the brown-haired nin leaving.

Miko does consent to trading shifts with him once he tracks her down after leaving the Hokage Tower after six, so he is home early enough to actually make dinner. An old standby, miso with eggplant and tofu, with some rice and the last of the really weirdly pickled beets that Gai made. He is craving saury but he doesn’t have any, and given that the week is almost over the fishermen probably don’t either.

He opens the living room window and eats while the breeze ruffles the leaves of his plants, wondering what the hell he’s going to do for the rest of the night. Since Miko is babysitting Naruto, and he doesn’t have to be back at the Hokage Tower (barring emergencies) until the next morning, Kakashi finds himself with altogether too much time on his hands. First he cleans up his dinner, storing the leftover miso in the fridge to eat for breakfast. With that done, he heads to find the plastic pitcher he acquired from Kotone--the woman who runs the tea shop--and begins watering all of the plants. It is, in a word, a process. A quite long process.

He has a lemon tree in his bedroom, stationed near enough to window that it soaks up most of the light. In the kitchen, atop the fridge and unused counter space live an ever-growing family of spider plants that keep spawning more and more, and he’s considering giving them all away as midwinter presents. The living room is where the rest of the plants are--apart from the snake plant in the bathroom, but he watered it that morning--and he nervously realizes that he might  _ have _ to get rid of some of them. It takes him three refills of the pitcher to water them all, and Mr. Ukki looks ominously yellow from his spot on the bookcase. Kakashi rearranges them, moving the staghorn and lily so that Mr. Ukki will fit on the windowsill.

With a sigh, he takes the string of pearls and hefts it back to the bedroom, uses chakra wire to hang it from the ceiling, out of the way enough that he won’t run into it, but the pearl-shaped leaves will hang down. He returns to the living room, rearranges some more.

Once the plants are taken care of there is nothing else to do. Well, there’s laundry to do but he always tends to put laundry off until it literally explodes out of the hamper. He could get a start on it, but that would involve….doing laundry.

He chooses, instead, to head out for the tea stand. Kotone keeps it open for ridiculous hours, but Kakashi supposes she capitalizes on the business of drunks, so there is that. Kotone sits him down and mutters under her breath about him being too skinny, brings him his tea and very pointedly tells him to go eat dinner. He doesn’t even try to tell her that he already has.

He stays at the stand for three cups of tea, Kotone stopping by between cups one and two to regale him with a rather hilarious tale about some of the Uchiha nin--when there had been Uchiha nin--thinking that her stand housed prostitutes. And then trying to pick up said prostitutes, who were the two girls Kotone had hired. She had sent them on their way with bruised faces.

Kakashi leaves the stand quite late, feeling immensely full but also done with talking to people for the next week. He heads back to his apartment, changes, and rolls into bed, feeling somewhat content for the first time in a long while.

A week and a half later, the window near Shinobu’s desk is nearly broken when the brown-haired nin returns, followed by a woman that seems extraordinarily familiar but also not. Kakashi guesses that they were the ones a bird was sent to fetch, so he stays in place and merely pays half an ear to the conversation that is going on in the office.

The Hokage speaks in that same melancholic voice as he had the week and a half before, says, “Mitarashi Anko, Umino Iruka, I regret to inform you that Wakahisa Yasu has been killed in the line of duty. I expect the remainder of the team to return in the coming days. Two others were killed as well,”

Shit, that is why there had been three birds sent out. Kakashi rocks in place, feeling slightly panicked for some reason he doesn’t know, but no so distracted that he misses the last thing the old man said. “At such time when they arrive, we will have the funerals. I have planned everything according to Wakahisa-san’s wishes, and as such will read his will two days following his funeral.”

Kakashi considers what the old man said when the two flickered out of the building. Mitarashi Anko--that’s why she was familiar, she was one of Orochimaru’s students, he remembers. But Umino Iruka, that name doesn’t sound familiar. Well, he was cute at least, Kakashi reasons, turning his attention to the mentioning of funerals. Since he had been Wakahisa’s team leader for a while he feels like he needs to show up to the funeral, but depending on the day he might be out on a mission, or watching Naruto, or even following Danzo. Kakashi brushes all of that from his mind, tries to focus on the job.

Nothing else happens that afternoon, and he is released to follow Naruto until the boy is safely in his apartment, asleep. Which, really, isn’t long after he gets ramen from Ichiraku. So Kakashi is back to his own apartment by nine that evening, ready for some fucking sleep after he eats the okonomiyaki he picked up on the way back.

More days go by like than, and then the months flicker by in a series of long, exhausting missions, and by the end life has begun to blur a lot for Kakashi. He arrives back in Konoha after the last one with a broken wrist and more bruises on his back that he would really ever prefer, and he almost breathes a sigh of relief when the old man gives him a week of and orders him to the hospital.

It is late spring and for the first time in a long time he allows himself to rest, to enjoy the sudden sprouting of greenery everywhere. It is almost cleansing, in a way, to breathe in clean air and be outside, in the sun. Not that he has much downtime once his wrist is fully healed. Miko, it turns out, is pregnant, so there are only two nin covering the boy, including Kakashi. They had a regular schedule, taking into account the school schedule, but with the summer break approaching very quickly the old man will need to assign more ANBU to Naruto because there is no way Kakashi and Yuri can cover him all day, every day.

Yuri is the one to go to the Hokage and mention it, but the old man pushes helping them out back because so many of his qualified operatives are on missions. Kakashi and Yuri are staying in Konoha because of that, and within two weeks Kakashi is going stir-crazy. He’s not used to staying in Konoha for long periods of unbroken time, and neither is Gai, so Gai starts to annoy him nearly every day.

One afternoon, a balmy Thursday free of Gai, he stops by the tea stand before heading to trade with Yuri. Kotone yells at him for being too skinny, standing all of her four and a half feet tall. But she is always so well dressed--all her kimono navy silk, embroidered with gold and silver thread--that he’s somewhat terrified of her. She gives him a plate of goma dango with his tea and refuses to let him pay for the dango, instead goes off to yell at somebody else. Kakashi drops enough money to pay for the dango on the plate when he leaves, and he leaves quickly or else she will throw the money back at him.

Yuri looks ready for a nap when he tags out, despite the fact that Kakashi can’t see his face for his turtle mask. “He’s in the park,” the other man says, pausing to glance back, “haven’t had any problems. I’ll stop by the Tower.”

Kakashi nods, makes sure his mask is secure, and camps out in the upper branches of a tree for the four and a half hours that Naruto remains in the park. A little pink haired girl plays with him some, but other than that he is on his own, making up games and swinging. The Uchiha--Sasuke, his name has to be Sasuke--sits on the swings too, and Kakashi is depressed just by looking at the both of them. The way that both of them were handled was, and is, wrong, Kakashi knows. What child would willingly stay in a house where he saw both parents murdered?

After playing, Naruto wanders the village. Kakashi wants to slam his head forcefully against a stone wall. The kid really doesn’t know what sort of danger he’s in by doing that, but it’s not like Kakashi can  _ tell _ him. So he sighs and loosens a kunai, follows the boy around the market district and almost loses him in a crowd of people leaving the okonomiyaki place. He locates him by chakra and nearly flies down to the street when he sees a man moving toward him, a bottle in his hand, but--

But the fucking brown haired ninja, Iruka, appears, carrying a sack that he drops when he flies forward and punches the man, yells something that Kakashi can’t make out and crushes the bottle under his foot. He doesn’t spare the man another glance, just picks up the bag and Naruto, slinging him under his arm, twisted as the boy is into the fetal position. Kakashi follows at a distance, guessing that Iruka is at least a chuunin, though the way he holds himself is more sure and deadly than that--likely he is a jounin. He makes a mental note to ask Gai if he knows anything about the man as they move west, past the Hokage Tower and the Academy to an area of the village that Kakashi has never been before.

Iruka pauses outside of a tall wooden fence, goes inside the compound. Kakashi deliberates between staying outside and going in. He shouldn’t be fully sure that the nin has good intentions toward Naruto, but everything that Kakashi has seen of Umino Iruka so far has pointed toward him being a genuinely good person. And cute, gods he is cute and Kakashi hates how that makes him feel. After losing all of the people that he has lost, he is loathe to admit any new people into his life. It annoys Gai to no end, but the other man understands. Few in Konoha know loss and death as intimately as Hatake Kakashi.

Making up his mind, he flickers to a tall tree inside the compound, where he can survey the entire house and close enough that he can sense Naruto’s chakra. There’s no changes in that regard, but eventually, after a couple of hours during which the Mitarashi woman leaves and comes back, he can tell that Naruto is asleep. A hard thing to distinguish just by chakra, but one skill he had honed.

Kakashi gives up for the night immediately after that. He heads to the tower to check in, tells the Hokage (who really should be asleep, he is old) that Naruto is sleeping at Iruka’s house. The old man looks almost relieved, which perplexes Kakashi to no end as he heads back to his apartment. The plants were watered that morning, so all he does before bed is eat the remnants of the barbequed beef and noodles that he had the night before, drinks the rest of the carton of milk and blearily realizes that he needs to buy food the next day.

Sleep comes quickly but it is not good sleep. He wakes at least twice during the night in a cold sweat, a kunai in his hand before he even realizes that he was dreaming, that there is no threat apart from his own mind. Around four in the morning he gives up, takes a shower and dresses and waters all of the plants. He makes himself tea and waits some to eat breakfast until it’s a more decent time; tamagoyaki and miso with rice.

He checks in at the Tower in the morning, as he and Yuri were instructed to do. Yuri has the mornings and he the evenings, but the old man dismisses Yuri for the day and asks Kakashi to come back after three that afternoon. He must really trust this Iruka person, Kakashi decides on his way to buy some food.  _ Really _ trust. Even when Naruto had been under the supervision of the old lady who had taken care of him during infancy, there had always been an ANBU watching over them.

Kakashi doesn’t even realize that he’s finished shopping until he’s standing outside the store with three full bags in one hand and a package of fish in the other. He shakes his head, violently and rather to the surprise of those around him, and disappears to his apartment. He needs to see Gai, and gather information.

The Hokage sends him out to watch over Naruto that afternoon, to Kakashi’s annoyance. Interestingly, Gai had invited him to the bar that evening, so he was hoping to be able to go, but if he has to babysit Naruto from afar…

But Naruto is only at the park for a couple hours, and after he returns to Iruka’s. Kakashi has enough confidence in his assessment that Naruto won’t be leaving that he goes and tells the Hokage, who lets him off, just in time to meet up with Gai.

Gai is rather a font of information once Kakashi gets one drink into him. It’s amazing, really, but Kakashi carefully steers their conversation toward the topic of Iruka in such a way that Gai won’t really realise that he’s doing it purposefully.

It doesn’t even take any prodding. Once Kakashi mentions that he hasn’t heard much about the man Gai’s eyes light up with a very strange fire and he orders another beer, downs half of it before speaking, “My most youthful rival, his story is one of sadness and happiness! I cannot believe that you have not heard of him! Alas, until some weeks ago he was the last of the Umino clan in Konoha, until Wakahisa Yasu--I believe you may have known him!--passed on and left him the heir to the Wakahisa clan, and him only a chuunin and an Academy teacher!”

“The Wakahisa clan?” Kakashi prods, sipping his sake. He has a high tolerance for alcohol--bless the gods--but he doesn’t want to unintentionally get himself drunk and forget everything that Gai is telling him.

“Noble scions,” Gai said, and Kakashi almost laughs but doesn’t. The other man is obviously well on his way to drunkenness because the flowery language is dropping as he continues, “You obviously never paid attention in school, my dear rival, because the Wakahisa clan was quite well known for their skill with weapons. I believe the dear, recently-deceased Wakahisa-san was a weaponsmith--” that clicks in Kakashi’s mind, as Yasu had taken his father’s tanto to fix it--”but they have been a dying clan for many years. Perhaps Iruka-san and Anko-san will resurrect it!”

“Anko?” Kakashi asks, wanting to prod more about Iruka but also slightly confused at Anko’s role in this entire, messy cobweb of a story.

“My rival, you must know that Anko-san and Iruka-san have known each other for years!” Gai says, sounding almost scandalized even as he slurs, “They are most youthful companions and have been since Orochimaru was driven out of Konoha.”

“Hm,” was all Kakashi could manage, both because that meant that she and Iruka are probably dating, and also Gai is halfway through another beer and looking dangerously green. Kakashi cuts him off, and, once he is done, drags him home. Gai has the annoying ability to completely work past a hangover with only one cup of coffee, but Kakashi for the life of him gets the worst hangovers on very little liquor.

He drinks a glass of water when he gets to his apartment, heats water for some tea and spends three whole minutes with his forehead pressed to the cool of the fridge, telling himself that it is  _ fine _ Iruka probably wouldn’t be interested in him even if he was single because he is a loser.

The whistling of the kettle breaks him from that self-esteem stompdown, probably for the best. He releases the fridge, pours the water on and lets it steep while he cracks the window in his bedroom and the one in the living room. It’s too warm during the day to keep them open but that makes the entire apartment stuffy and claustrophobic.

Laying on the couch with his mug of green tea, a night breeze blowing in from the window, Kakashi stares at the ceiling and forces himself to not think about Iruka or Naruto or anyone at all other than who the hell he should gift the spider plants to. Gai, for sure, but Gai would not be okay with more than two plants, tops. And, anyway, he would probably kill them anyway. Maybe to Asuma, he will have to get used to taking care of stuff if his relationship with Kurenai doesn’t slow down.

After a while he sighs, sits up enough to begin drinking the tea. He doesn’t like the downtime. He doesn’t like being stuck in his apartment with nothing to do but water his plants, as much as he loves his plants, and he doesn’t like Gai dragging him out night after night to socialize or drink.

Kakashi is thrilled, then, when after a couple of weeks of watching Naruto all but living at the Wakahisa house, he is moved off of guard duty and back into the general ANBU mission roster. That means missions, means long stays away from Konoha where Gai can’t find him and annoy him. At least, there are missions when he’s not injured, and after around a year he’s comfortably back in his routine.

There’s a dry spell then, because there are only so many people needing to be killed at any particular time and sometimes that is none. He’s left listless for about a week and that proves to be somewhat of a mistake on the Hokage’s part.

So, maybe he does break into the records room in the tower to read up on Wakahisa Iruka, but if anyone mentions it he denies any involvement. There is much more in his files than Kakashi’s previous knowledge, but there are still a number of questions he has about the man. Why would he take in--why would he  _ adopt _ \--the one boy who the entire village blamed for the attack of the fox, particularly when both his parents died in said attack? What the  _ hell _ happened to his family back in Kirigakure, for them to move to and be accepted in Konoha? And then there are more questions, about his abilities--they aren’t written about in the files, almost as if the old man doesn’t want anyone to know about them. But, above all, he is confused as to why the hell Iruka is a teacher.

While not much is written in the files--obviously, they’re the almost-public ones--Kakashi is most confused about that. Iruka scored extremely well on his chuunin exam, and throughout his time at the Academy he consistently ranked at the head of his class. Even his jounin teacher, who wasn’t named, had written about his abilities with such praise that few people in the village received.

He rolls over in his bed, trying to ignore the topic that is almost taking over his life, and unintentionally shoves Uuhei off the bed. She yips, jumps back on the bed, and lays on top of him, saying, “Pup, stop wiggling around.”

Kakashi sighs, pats her on the head while Pakkun and the others grumble and adjust their positions accordingly. He needs to talk to the Hokage, but he really can’t make himself get up. All he wants is a mission that will take up most, or all, of the winter break so he doesn’t have to deal with midwinter. It’s a routine, really, but the Hokage doesn’t seem to mind. Not many nin want missions over midwinter.

After a couple of hours, until the sun touches the leaves of the lemon tree, he sends the dogs back and goes to take a very cold, very short shower that he hopes will wake him up and keep him awake for the rest of the day.

Perhaps it is fate that he is up and ready so early, because as he is snapping a lid on the miso that had composed part of his breakfast a bird slams into the living room window, taps it three times and flies off. He grumbles, puts the miso in the fridge and the pans into the sink, then follows the bird out of the window. The Tower is almost completely empty when he makes it, but for the lights on in the Hokage’s office and Shinobu’s caffeinated presence outside of the office.

“You can go right in, Hatake-san,” she says as she nods to him, practically vibrating in her seat, “Thank you for coming so quickly.”

He nods in reply, pushes the door open. The Hokage, for once, is not filling out logic puzzles, instead looking through rosters and files that Kakashi ignores.

“Ah, Hatake-san,” the old man says, leans back with a sigh, “In discussion with the Council at our meeting last night, they have seen fit to continue check ups on the Wakahisa family, following Iruka-san’s adoption of Uchiha Sasuke.”

His eyes are wide because--what the  _ actual fuck _ ? Nobody had told him that Sasuke had been adopted, least of all by Iruka, and while he isn’t exactly surprised about that he’s surprised that the council didn’t put an immediate stop to it. Which means that the Hokage had been able to persuade them that it was an appropriate place to be. Kakashi steels himself, says, “Okay.”

“You will be assigned this on your own,” the old man says, leans forward to steeple his hands and look Kakashi in the eye. “It will not be everyday, unless you or I see fit for you to increase the frequency, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, in the afternoon. Shinobu has a schedule for you, and you will begin next Monday.”

So, three days. Kakashi sighs, nods slightly, thankful that he is wearing his mask so the old man can’t see him. “As you wish, Hokage-sama.”

It’s not  _ bad _ , it’s not as if he has to spend entire days watching the Wakahisa family, but it’s an annoyance that he hadn’t foreseen. It doesn’t mean he can’t take missions, necessarily, but that he’s stuck on those that are short and generally boring. But that is life, he reminds himself on one afternoon in a pine tree on the Wakahisa estate. There’s no point in complaining, because the Hokage doesn’t care.

Thankfully, though, the Hokage has him drop Wednesdays, then Fridays. It’s obvious  _ why _ . There are minimal problems at the Wakahisa house. Naruto settles down even more, spends most of his time--when not at the house or at school--with Sasuke, who is advanced enough with his ninjutsu that Kakashi doesn’t really worry about the boys when they’re together. Iruka--Iruka is nothing if not a father to them, kind but not afraid to discipline. Mitarashi is the most confusing out of all of them, leaving at strange hours to go on runs or disappearing to the Hokage Tower and reappearing hours later with dango and sake, already buzzed on her own.

After months of checking in on the strange family every Monday, he still doesn’t understand Mitarashi’s relationship with Iruka. They’re more than friendly, but he can’t figure out if they are, as he suspects, dating, or just like--like siblings, maybe, in the way that he has been told some teammates are.

The weeks march by after that until he is told to stop checking up on the Wakahisa household and he is (officially) a year older. Every year Gai tries to drag him out to drink, but every year Kakashi somehow manages to avoid it, and this year is no different. Namely, he is stuck waiting for salmon at the fish stand in the market so he isn’t home when Gai stops by, and nor is he in any of the other places the other man would check. And Gai, being Gai, is shit at finding people by their chakra alone, so he is relatively safe once he has gotten his fish.

They don’t have saury but grilled salmon is still good, and after he makes and eats dinner he cleans up, makes sure the traps on his windows and door are armed, and goes to take a bath. There’s something about being able to completely relax and not think that is particularly appealing on his birthday, though Kakashi really can’t say why.

Some sake after that, just a little because he knows that the old man won’t let him be in the morning, and Kakashi summons his dogs. His bed is large enough for them and him--though Buru is mostly on the floor--so they fall asleep as one and wake as one in the middle hours of the morning, as the sun is just rising.

Uuhei and Shiba disappear to sniff out the rest of the apartment when Kakashi gets up, Pakkun clinging to his shoulder like a cat. He goes to the bathroom, washes his hands and face before heading to the kitchen.

“Why do you smell like fox?” Pakkun asks, drooling on Kakashi’s tanktop.

Kakashi snorts, opens the fridge to get out some beef and miso, “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

Pakkun gnaws his shoulder for that, stopping only after Kakashi sears beef enough for him and the other ninken. He thoroughly cooks some thin-sliced beef for himself, makes up miso to last a couple days, then eats and prepares for his day.

The ninken leave before he heads out to the Hokage’s office where, true to form, the man assigns him a nearly month-long infiltration mission.

By the time that he returns, Kakashi ready to kill every single red-headed person he sees and never eat any sweets again. The Hokage is not sympathetic, just sends him out on another mission that, by the end, has Kakashi wanting to kill  _ him _ instead. Equivalent exchange, really.

He gets what could be considered a permanent break after that, because the Hokage informs him that he is going to be retired from the ANBU. Though it feels like a betrayal, Kakashi is really relieved. Maybe it is the number of times he has been injured, or the number of people he has seen die, but he is starting to feel older and older.

It is a week after he is retired that he feels the soft paper in his weapon pouch and remembers Wakahisa’s promise, and even another couple weeks before he can do as the paper says. An escorting mission, clear-cut and easy, but bound to be boring. Well, in the eyes of other nin it probably would not be seen as easy, as it is an A-rank, but the old man’s a bridge builder and Kakashi isn’t too concerned. After all, who would hate a bridge builder?

The answer to that is: a surprising amount of people. Kakashi does not hesitate to include himself in that number because Tazuna is not a fun person to be around and after a full week of being in the old man’s presence as well as running off the low-level nin that Gato bought, Kakashi is ready to go home. Or maybe kill something.

He does the latter before the former, but thankfully it doesn’t take long for the bridge building to be finished. Kakashi leaves the same day, a half hour after Tazuna names it (the name, of course, he doesn’t catch because he’s counting down the minutes) and makes it back to Konoha two days later, a push even for a high ranked nin such as himself. After the Hokage pays him and sends him to the hospital where he is ordered to take it easy and a stress fracture in his left ankle is healed, the first place he goes is the Wakahisa compound.

Mitarashi is there, in the woods, he guesses. Iruka is in the house, but Kakashi finds himself stalling at the gate, the old paper in hand. There’s no reason for him to be scared but he is. He didn’t really know Wakahisa while the other was still alive, and he doesn’t know Iruka or the others living there well enough to be comfortable.

He is wallowing in enough confusion and anxiety that he only notices Iruka’s approach when the other man asks, tone very curious, “Hatake-san?”

“Ah, Wakahisa-san? I was given this by Wakahisa Yasu four years ago,” he holds out the paper, nervously waits as Iruka unfolds it and reads. The other man’s eyes widen and he looks way too excited for such a small thing.

“Yes, Hatake-san, they’re inside the house,” he turns and heads toward the structure, and Kakashi worriedly follows him, “I’ll be a minute.”

The brown haired man disappears inside of the house, leaving Kakashi in the entryway. Of course, he is curious to see the house, especially considering the long hours he spent outside of it, but he reminds himself that now is not the time. A dog trots out of the house as if it knows that Kakashi will pet it (yes, he pets it) and Kakashi stands with the dog until there is a whistle from inside the house, and Iruka reappears.

The dog leaves, and Iruka holds out a wrapped package to him looking almost apologetic. “We found a tanto, too, but Anko must’ve misplaced it,” he says.

Kakashi accepts the package, tucks it under one arm and asks, “A tanto?” before realizing that it must be his father’s.

“It had been repaired,” Iruka explains, rocking back slightly, “If I remember correctly. When I find it I will get it to you.”

After nodded, Kakashi leaves, makes for his apartment where he will (hopefully) have some peace and quiet and  _ not _ think about Iruka.

The package he wants to open, but he needs to do laundry. Very badly. In the, there’s-only-two-shirts-left-in-the-entire-apartment and don’t-ask-about-the-state-of-the-underwear-drawer sort of ways. Yes, it’s a bad habit to let his laundry pile up especially when he has a mission, but it’s one that he doesn’t particularly care to break. Cleaning all of the clothes at once and putting them away, folded and dry, is weirdly satisfying.

And after he finishes the laundry he realizes that the bathroom  _ needs _ to be cleaned, and there’s old food and milk in the fridge that also needs to be dealt with, and Gai didn’t do a very good job of watering the plants--

He gets to the package when he eats dinner, takeout from the okonomiyaki place in lieu of buying groceries. Balancing his takeout box on one knee, he strips the paper off of the package only to find a thick layer of very expensive fabric underneath it. It’s too heavy to be  _ just _ fabric, though, and he flips it over to tug out a pin that was holding the silk in place.

The silk takes form, a well-made tunic in the style that nin wore maybe fifty years before, and in the middle of it is a stack of photos topped by another note in Wakahisa’s chicken scratch. Kakashi reads that before looking at anything else.

“dog--tunic and photos given my grandmother by Hatake Hoshino. the note she left with it said that were given for safekeeping and needed to be returned to him. rings given my mother by Hatake Sakumo.”

Hoshino. Kakashi considers. He thinks his grandfather--his father’s father--was named Hoshino, but he had never met the man. Before he looks at the pictures he puts the whole thing onto the table, goes to his bookshelf and searches for the only photo album he owns. It is full, but it’s thin and small, and he automatically flips past the first ten or so pages, to an empty one with a folded paper tucked in the plastic pocket.

He sits back down and pulls the paper out with careful fingers. It’s at least twenty years old. When he had been younger--much,  _ much _ younger, before his father’s suicide and just after his mother had passed away--the man had sat him down and told him about his late grandparents, about his mother. The paper that he is unfolding was from that day, and Kakashi handles it with care. Names are written in his father’s thin, graceful handwriting, and it confirms Kakashi’s guess that Hoshino was his grandfather.

The paper is refolded and he places it gently back in the plastic, leaves the album to be put away later. Kakashi turns his attention back to the package, pulls out the stack of photographs that are going with age. They are of nobody that he can instantly identify, but slowly he can see a face that is familiar to his in some of them, a young boy that he can see as his father, a younger man who looks like the Hokage.

They are set aside as well, when he finishes flipping through them. There isn’t room left in the album he has, so he vaguely considers going to get another as he returns to the note.

“rings given me by Hatake Sakumo.”

His fingers shake when he finds them, traps them in the palm of his fisted hand so he doesn’t have to see them. Kakashi already knows what they are, because when he found his father’s dead body his wedding ring was gone. It wasn’t--it hadn’t been important, he hadn’t even thought about it, but with the rings now in his hand Kakashi wonders why he hadn’t thought about it.

Whatever self-loathing he feels he pushes away so he can look at the rings.

Both thin, matching gold bands. His mother’s is smaller and has etched waves on the surface--fittingly. Manami had been her name, and though Kakashi remembers very little of her, he does remember that she loved the sea and would tell him stories of living on the coast in her own childhood. His fathers is thicker and instead of waves there are miniscule checker boards etched into the gold. The symbol of the Hatake clan, the symbol that Kakashi never wore.

Kakashi sighs, his throat feeling thick and his eyes stinging, closes his palm again and lets the gold warm to his hand. Of course he’s going to keep them, he just...he didn’t realize that their reappearance would hurt him as much as it has.

After some minutes, he sets the rings down, breathes deep.

The tunic is dark blue silk with the Hatake symbol embroidered in white on the back. He folds it and puts it away in the bottom drawer of his dresser. The photographs stay on the table with the already full album, and he puts away the remaining okonomiyaki before picking the rings back up.

Somebody, he doesn’t remember and doesn’t care to remember who, gave him a necklace years before, though he had lost the pendant for it in the passing time. He still has the chain, though, and he fishes it out of the trinket basket on his dresser, slides first his mother’s ring, then his father’s onto it.

He slides the chain over his head and tucks the rings under his sweater. And then he sits for a little while on the couch, considers his plants and his books and the few photographs that hang on the wall.

Kakashi tells himself that he is alright, and if he isn’t right now, he will be.

If the Hokage notices anything amiss the next day, he doesn’t comment, just hands Kakashi the scroll for his mission and reminds him to be safe. Kakashi lets himself fall into the routine of missions again, leaving for days or weeks and coming back and leaving again. It doesn’t last long, though, because on one afternoon, hours after he has stopped by the mission room to return his papers and finally made it back to his apartment--with a broken wrist of all things--a bird appears to tap on the living room window.

When he sees the bird on that particular spring afternoon he assumes that it is just for another mission, probably an emergency but nothing more. But in the Tower the Hokage has that expression on his face, the expression that means he is about to probably ruin someone’s life, but it won’t be his own. Kakashi resigns himself to his fate.

“Hatake-san, thank you for coming so quickly,” the old man says in a very casual voice.

He makes a noncommittal noise in reply, shoves his hands in his pockets and hopes that it won’t be what he thinks it is. Being a jounin in itself is annoying but if--

“Since you were removed from the ANBU you have produced magnificent results on standard missions, however,” he leans forward, acquires an evil gleam in his eyes, “It is important that one with your skills passes those skills onto the new generation--” _ fuck _ \--“so I am taking this opportunity, as well as the council of Wakahisa Iruka as their former teacher, to assign you a genin team.”

Kakashi wants to slam his head repeatedly into a very hard wall. He--well, to say  _ hates _ would overstate it--but he  _ hates _ children and the prospect of being in charge of them, not to mention being in control of their very  _ livelihoods _ . But he doesn’t show it to the Hokage, just nods and makes affirmative grunts when needed.

Naruto, Sasuke, and some girl named Haruno Sakura who he has never heard of. After he leaves the Tower he goes to find this Sakura girl’s house and scope her out, not feeling the need to do the same for the boys because, well, obviously.

Her house is in the middle of the village, a fairly small place surrounded by other houses, small shops and restaurants. Not far from the Academy but not exactly close. Thankfully the kids don’t have class, and she is inside. Though, not for long. A girl who is the spitting image of Inoichi appears at the front door and nearly knocks it down with her hammering.

Sakura--Sakura appears and he wants to punch himself in the face. The pink-haired girl, the one who would break into Naruto’s apartment with stolen fruit and smuggled vegetables and get rid of the boy’s rancid milk. Kakashi had desperately hoped that she would be  _ normal _ but he can see that none of his wishes are coming true. He resigns himself to his apartment, digs the bells out of his dresser and considers how hard the coming test will be.

They pass it. He--well, he has to hand it to them, they had  _ no clue _ what was coming and they worked wonderfully together, but he has a sneaking suspicion that they passed because they have trained together. Kakashi isn’t sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing, or whether that will make his life easier, but since they pass he is, officially, their jounin sensei.

_ Gods _ is he terrified.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kakashi is honest enough with himself that he can admit that, no, he did not think his life would end up in this way. Well, at least he is comforted with the knowledge that Iruka feels the same.

Kakashi he eases himself, and them, into the habits of a team. They train daily and have at least a mission a week. Nothing particularly hard, but after a few weeks--hell,  _ days _ at the rate they progress--of training them they can’t subsist solely on D-ranks. Naruto and Sasuke he doesn’t worry about being bored because they find innumberable ways to annoy each other, but Sakura is starting to get a strange, terrifying fire in her eyes that reminds him of Ibiki when the man talks about torture. Within another few weeks of that they are taking B-rank missions sporadically with the C- and D-ranks, no infiltration but a lot of escorting and recon. By the time that the winter break at the Academy comes, Kakashi is also ready for a break. From missions--definitely. From training--well, he knows that the chuunin exams are going to be held in Konoha, and soon, so they need to continue, but they do it at a less frantic pace and not every day of the week.

He isn’t expecting a mission, particularly a lone mission, but he gets one in the middle of break and damned if he isn’t already too tired to take it. The Hokage doesn’t take kindly to his complaining and so he is in the middle of a (completely ignored) dressing down when Iruka pushes into the office. His leg is broken and he looks like he’s going to pass out or maybe  _ die _ but Kakashi can’t focus on the other man because there is a  _ fox _ in the room and it’s driving his senses wild.

The fox ignores him and once it and Iruka are gone he cannot focus on anything the Hokage says, mostly because the old man is muttering to himself.

“Hatake!” the old man snaps after a few minutes of shuffling papers, and Kakashi almost drops the kunai in his sleeve and chucks it at him.

“Yes?” is all he can manage, trying to get his heartrate under control.  _ Own damn fault. _

“Wakahisa-san should be at the hospital, please go and see that once he is released he comes back here,” the old man says, shuffling the papers together again and calling for Shinobu before saying, to Kakashi, “I have some questions for him.”

Kakashi nods, disappears to the hospital. He bypasses the nurse’s station and check-in, follows his nose back to one of the examination rooms and knocks.

A very short, very irritated looking nurse whips the door open and scowls at him, asks, “Hatake-san. Do you need something?”

And the fox is the first thing on his mind again but he ignores that, levels his thinking and reminds himself to stay formal, says, “The Hokage sent me. He requests Wakahisa-san come back to his office when done here.”

She eyes him as though judging his fitness or ability, but then sighs and points to a chair next to the examination table, “Sit. He’s going to need crutches, and with the ice outside I don’t want to send him there on his own.”

He sits, feels immensely uncomfortable until the fox propels itself-- _ herself _ \--off of Iruka’s torso and onto his lap, begins yapping in a fashion not unlike his own ninken. Dozens of questions in those barks and yips, asking him about the dogs, about his hair and his mask and his eyes and why did he sort of smell like Iruka? But Kakashi doesn’t answer the questions, just snorts and pats her and ignores the harsh smell of pain coming off of her master as his bones are realigned.

Kakashi does watch the other man out of the corner of his eye, can only tell that he is pained by smell and by the small wrinkles at the corners of his eyes that deepen as he watches the medic nin work. And Kakashi--Kakashi gets this almost fervent wish to be able to take that pain away from Iruka. He tamps it down, reminds himself that he is being formal, and almost grabs the fox when she launches herself back onto Iruka yowling in an almost incomprehensible way.

Kakashi only catches Iruka’s side of the conversation, a droll, “Or, you could go back to your home. Stop being nosy.” He flicks her nose like she’s an annoyance and she gekkers, turns back to Kakashi and jumps onto him, howling.

That--of all the things,  _ that _ makes the medic nin look up, point one cotton-holding hand at the fox and growl, “One more noise out of you, my furry friend, and I’ll have a nice new fox-fur shawl for the new year.”

The fox lays down on his lap and she  _ sulks _ . Kakashi would laugh if alone but in present company he does not, just rubs her behind the ears in the way that Uuhei likes and forces back another chuckle when she turns to putty in his hands. She lays flat, head between her paws and almost purrs as he scratches her.

The medic nin leaves to find crutches and the fox stands again, yips out, “That woman is goddamned terrifying.”

Kakashi  _ almost _ snorts, says deadpan, “What happened to staying quiet? Can we go back to that?” The fox flails a little and half-heartedly bites at him as foxes and small, ego-driven dogs were wont to do.

“Stop that,” Iruka says, grabbing her by the neck so she’ll look him in the eye, “I’ll tell Ginshu and Akabeni that you’re trying to bite people again. I am sorry, Hatake-san. Shinshu is still young.”

Kakashi finds a smile on his lips and eyes as he looks between the fox and the man, who shakes her lightly when she growls, “I’ll show you young.”

The medic nin returns, looking marginally less pissed off but more tired. Iruka lets the fox drop back gently onto Kakashi’s lap, and Kakashi picks her up when Iruka stands, a bag of pain pills in one hand and crutches in both.

Their walk to the Tower is short and mostly quiet, a quiet to match the snow and the cold and the already weighing darkness. Kakashi watches the fox but keeps Iruka centered in his line of vision at all times. It isn’t hard, he finds, and the thought makes his chest feel strange and distant.

Shinobu leads them in and Kakashi herds Iruka to one of the wooden chairs scattered throughout the room, standing extremely close to him until he finally sits down with a small, almost inaudible sigh. Kakashi ignores the goings on of the Hokage’s people, for the most part. The fox is in his arms and though she doesn’t squirm or try to free herself Kakashi can tell that she wants to, and he also keeps a close eye on Iruka. The man really looks exhausted.

The Hokage has him escort Iruka back to the Wakahisa compound, where Naruto is blearily watching Sasuke throw fire shuriken extremely close to the house. Kakashi sighs. They were  _ supposed _ to be climbing trees with only chakra, and he isn’t sure he has enough trust in them to accept that they both succeeded. And he hopes he will get a chance to deny any involvement in Sasuke’s preoccupation with burning things down, but he is beaten to it when Sasuke shoves all blame onto Naruto.

“Weren’t you two assigned to climb trees?” he interjects after that.

Naruto looks as if his head will explode as he says, “Kakashi-sensei? What are you doing here?”

Kakashi doesn’t deign answering, lets Shinshu eject herself from his arms and land right on Naruto’s face, screeching.

He doesn’t wait around to see the aftermath of that and Naruto’s stammered explanation of the Kyuubi, but keeps pace with Iruka as the other man slowly makes his way inside the house. After Iruka is seated at the kotatsu and Kakashi decides he wants to leave, he is prevented from doing so because of the reappearance of Naruto and Sasuke. 

Naruto has a sealing sequence that he needs help with--a large-scale container seal, and Kakashi doesn’t know why he’s trying to learn it--so he helps as best he can with that. Kakashi can do seals, they’re an integral part of the ANBU’s necessary skills and his sensei had made them all learn even the most basic, but he is by no means an expert. The best he can do is explain some of the writing placement, then recommend that the blond start another letter to Jiraiya. On top of the one that he had sent the week before.

But Jiraiya answers every letter and is the source of several of Naruto’s sealing books and scrolls. After all, he is the boy's godfather, even if he refuses to visit or be a real part of his life.

Whatever, Kakashi is sort of bitter about it.

While Naruto is writing his letter, Sasuke all but begs Kakashi to teach him the hand signs for large fire shurikens which, after a lecture on the importance of  _ not _ setting the entire village or his father’s house on fire, Kakashi does. Sakura appears after that with tea and her usual calming presence, reassures Kakashi that, yes, the boys did succeed in climbing trees, and yes, she stayed and watched them to make sure that they did.

He feels immensely relieved at that, lets the girl drag Naruto out to the inner garden where, apparently, there is a pond for them to practice water walking on. Sasuke stays to continue memorizing the hand signs, but then he starts to pester Kakashi for other katon jutsu (as if he hasn’t spent the last few months doing the same to Mitarashi). So, he is ordered out to practice water walking as well, and Kakashi successfully realizes that he can  _ leave _ but--

The fox climbs onto him, chittering to herself and sounding very tired but not enough to stop throwing questions at him. Kakashi looks from her to the closed door where he can hear his team carousing (and, hopefully, practicing) and up at Iruka, who seems very close to passing out. “How do you do this everyday?” he asks, and he can hear the bemusement in his own voice.

Iruka raises his head, and there’s something like a smirk on his face when he replies, “Well, technically they’re now yours every day.”

And while he was referring to the general state of chaos that surrounded the house as a whole, the reminder of his responsibilities is enough to strike horror across Kakashi’s face. Iruka seems amused by that, at least until the amado and then the shoji at the front of the house open and close and Mitarashi appears, looking altogether much too energetic. “Iruka!” she yells.

“Yes?” He doesn’t move, sets his head back down on the kotatsu.

She starts saying something, but cuts herself off when she notices Kakashi. But, in the strangest of turns, she looks excited at his appearance, says, “kay, we’re not going to talk about that in present company—but I do know where the tanto is!”

The sudden turn of events is too much for his overloaded brain, and he looks at Iruka when she runs back out of the room, asks, “Tanto?”

Iruka peels his head off the table, sits up properly and says, “You know, the one that had been repaired.”

That connects, and he remembers the paper and his father’s tanto. And though he thought the day was uncomfortable and horrible, it’s perhaps lessened knowing that the tanto will once again be in his possession. Anko returns quickly, hands him the blade. The mounts were changed, the guard removed, replaced by solid wood covered in black lacquer. He slides the blade out and, forgetting that others are in the room, inspects it. The balance is better than it had been, and the lightest of touches from one of his thumbs draws a bead of blood. None of the sharpness was lost.

Kakashi swings it then, a light swing keeping in mind the fox on his lap and the table in front of him. His chakra is naturally white, also inherited from his father, but the sabre makes it shine and linger for a few seconds.

Shinshu backs off his lap, stands and gekkers. Iruka and Mitarashi are staring, but Kakashi doesn’t really notice until he slides the blade back into the lacquer sheath.

Mitarashi’s excitement and seemingly unending energy break the silence that descends, and she trills, “Dinner!” before going out into the garden. Kakashi can see her from where he’s positioned, can see her shove Naruto and Sasuke into the pond, both of the boys grabbing onto Sakura as they fall and dragging her into the water with them. He has to bite his lip to stop himself from laughing. As Mitarashi grabs Sasuke and drags him inside after her, she continues, “Misoshiru! And I think we have tofu and negi—no tomatoes!”

Sasuke looks bitter at that, and Kakashi reminds himself not to laugh. Again.

Naruto and Sakura appear after that, arms around each other like they are both wounded and in need of help walking, and as they disappear into the kitchen, the fox moves to follow them.

Kakashi, from years of experience with dogs and--in particular-- _ puppies _ , immediately grabs her by the nape of her neck and returns her to his lap. The destruction that small animals can cause in a kitchen is nothing to laugh at. He hooks the tanto to his shuriken holster and doesn’t complain when the little shiba settles down on his other side after making friends with Shinshu.

The dog and fox distract him until Naruto and Sakura reappear, and when he looks up Iruka is almost blatantly looking somewhere else, as if he had almost been caught staring.

Sakura slips under the kotatsu, rests her head on it as she says, “I can bake, but I can’t cook.”

“Anko doesn’t trust me with kitchen knives,” Naruto returns as he sits next to her. And--once again, a bitten lip and no laughing. He’d gotten better with weapons over the past few months, but Kakashi also doesn’t trust Naruto with kitchen knives.

Sakura echoes that sentiment, and Kakashi is distracted from his team by Iruka, who scoots a little closer and says, “I’m surprised. You seem to have beaten the joy out of them already. It took me two years to do that.”

And--Kakashi can’t stop the snort that comes out at that, which is a little mortifying. Iruka looks pleased, though, so Kakashi keeps quiet and hopes that his ears aren’t  _ too _ red.

They do end up eating, after Sakura and Naruto stare him down whenever he gets it in his mind that he can leave. The fox and dog seem to know those thoughts, as well, because by the time that Sasuke comes out with a tray of steaming bowls of miso and grilled beef, they are both on his lap, nearly laying on top of each other.

Once they do eat, Kakashi begrudgingly (albeit silently) thanks the animals and his students for passive-aggressively forcing him to stay. He knows that Sasuke loves food because he is the source of the three kids’ bentos, when they need them, and one time Sakura mentioned her intense hatred for red curry devolved into the boy loudly extolling the virtues of all types of curry while running away from her very tight fists. The food is  _ good _ , in that particular way that well made home-cooked food is. But even good food does not make an introvert into an extrovert, so as soon as he can after the meal ends, Kakashi leaves.

He travels in a rather haphazard manner through the village, relishing the cold air and the silence until he reaches his apartment. He shuts and locks the door behind him, leans his back against it and feels mortified. Water goes on the stove to be boiled and he reviews the events of the evening and--no, he didn’t do anything extremely embarrassing. But he still feels embarrassed, maybe because he didn’t want to stay but was almost forced to. What if he had stayed  _ too  _ long? Kakashi runs a hand down his face, tugging off his mask and headband, and orders himself to breathe.

After the water is in a mug and his tea is brewing, he takes the tanto off of his leg, from where he hung it next to his shuriken holster, and tugs it out of the sheath again. He inspects it slowly, runs a thumb down the thick spine of the blade. It isn’t a proper tanto, but a yoroidoshi made for piercing the thick armor that shinobi wore decades ago. Kakashi swirls it lazily, lets his chakra flash in the dim light of the overhead, cutting the steam rising off of his tea.

It has seen more than one lifetime’s worth of battles, Kakashi muses as he sips his tea, more than two or three lifetimes. And--for it to have been in Wakahisa’s possession, then going to Iruka…

It is safe to say that Kakashi is skeptical of any and all gods, but if anything would convince him of their existence it would be that strange trail of coincidences. Kakashi pushes that out of his mind, though, because he really knows that his existence being close to Iruka’s is due to coincidence and, occasionally, the Hokage. That is enough explanation for him.

Once his tea is gone he sits on the floor in his bedroom and polishes the blade. It was forged to sharpness when first made, hand filed to a razor edge that has not disappeared in time, but he does it anyway. When he returns it to sheath and places the whole mounting into the belt that he has not worn for years, the ripples in the metal shine.

The next day, he takes the mission. It’s out of the Land of Fire, off in the distant north of the Land of Wind, and Kakashi is cold and tired by the time he makes it there. While the country is to the south, the harsh winds and the complete absence of humidity mean that Kakashi’s lips are cracked and his eye stings with every blink. His target is a small-time crime lord-- _ not _ from the Land of Wind, thankfully--who was behind some kidnappings in the Land of Fire.

All of the intel that they have of him (and one of the few times in his life that Kakashi has actually wanted to  _ thank _ Ibiki) points to several missing-nin being in his circle. Kakashi knows the bingo book cover to cover, and some of the nastier names are mentioned in the papers that he burns before leaving the Land of Fire. So, he knows what he’s in for, at least approximately.

Kakashi takes down at least a dozen nin, half of them missing-nin, before he finally kills his mark. They’re in a run down village that at one time must’ve been a farming community, before the sands blew north. No civilians, and that lets Kakashi breathe a sigh of relief before he sends the whole place up in flames.

After that, it is just a matter of getting away. Which….is harder.

While most of the missing nin that he had done away with were associated with his target, a handful of them seemed to be associated with a different crime lord, probably in the Land of Earth given the large number of striked headbands he recognizes from there. And that crime lord doesn’t take kindly to their associate being killed. Or at least that is what one of the nin that he asked about it tells him.

(the screaming probably meant that he was telling the truth, but Kakashi can’t really be sure)

So, less than a day out from Konoha, Kakashi is all but surrounded by missing-nin. He doesn’t stop to fight, because getting himself killed does not seem like a good idea, but runs. At top speed it will take him three hours instead of a day to get within range of the village to body-flicker back, and if he’s that close the ANBU will take charge of killing the missing-nin, anyway.

Nothing ever works out as he plans, though, because at least half a dozen  _ more _ missing-nin intercept them around eight kilometers away from the village.

He gets the vaguest sense that he is in a bad place before one of the missing-nin sends a flurry of shuriken at him and he has to dodge not one, but two swords. It’s not that the mission is hard--hell, he’s fought more nin than this on solo missions before--it’s just that, for once, he was not exactly prepared to go into the field over midwinter. Another swipe of a sword, another dodge. He’s nearly close enough to body-flicker back into the village and let the ANBU deal with the missing nin.

And he’s exhausted from literally running for two straight days on soldier pills alone, so he doesn’t exactly notice the sword coming at him until it is almost too late, until he pulls away just enough so it will scrape a gash in his abdomen, a gash that soaks through his clothes as he takes the few steps to get close enough to the village.

Everything goes black when he does, and he can focus on the familiar feel of tatami against his face and the smell of green tea in the air before he is out.

The next time he wakes up he is in the hospital, which he primarily identifies by the smell that assails him. It’s the early morning, if the light from the window is anything to go by, and everything hurts. Well, he can pinpoint the more notable places that are hurting--his abdomen and his back--but everywhere else hurts as well, and it is overwhelming.

He paws at his face--his eye is covered, and there is a mask tugged up over his nose, and that alone is enough to flood his body with relief. The next thing he wants is--well, obviously, it is to  _ leave _ , he hates hospitals and he has never had to stay in one for a prolonged period of time.

There is a fairly short line of very stubborn people telling him that he can’t leave, though, and when Iruka appears in his room with okonomiyaki--that he  _ shares _ what the hell is Kakashi supposed to think about the man--Kakashi is halfway sure that this entire day has been a hallucination. But--

But the Wakahisa compound seems all too real, with Naruto and Sasuke punching each other while Sakura watches, and the green eyes that she looks at him with have very real concern in them.

The house smells like tatami and green tea. Kakashi barely manages to eat before he’s ready to pass out again, and Sakura takes his hand and leads him to a smaller room, toward the rear of the house where a futon is already waiting. He waits until she is gone to slip into the bed, easing himself down and under the large blanket. Every movement makes his abdomen explode with pain but once he is prone it lessens somewhat, at least enough so that he can sort of drift off.

It’s like he’s asleep, except he can faintly hear the goings on of the household. Sakura is chewing the boys out over something, but the three of them leave quickly. Somebody is marking paper with a pen, probably Iruka, and, once Mitarashi returns, the two adults talk softly to each other, and even laugh.

He begins to really drift off when she starts to sing softly, her voice surprisingly pure and clear. Kakashi doesn’t really understand what she is singing, but it feels nostalgic and warm, despite that.

He doesn’t remember dreaming, but he must have because when he wakes the sharingan is open and tears are flowing from it, wetting the dark, doubled over cloth he’d been given for it at the hospital. It is early, that much he can tell by frankly deafening sound of Naruto snoring a couple rooms away.

Only when he feels Mitarashi’s chakra in the kitchen does he stand, a little wobbly but otherwise fine, and leave the room.

She is frying tamagoyaki and fish, and working her way through an entire pot of green tea. When he enters the room she turns, blearily says, “Good morning, Hatake-san.”

“Uh, good morning, Mitarashi-san,” he returns, remains standing near the door.

“Please, call me Anko,” she says, and the desperation on her face is one that he has felt many a time after drinking. But, sudden familiarity, that is interesting.

He sits at the small table when she pats it in a demanding way, accepts the tea that she hands him. “Sorry if anyone interrupted your sleep last night. They didn’t go to bed until way later than we usually allow.”

“The kids?”

“They’re his children, not mine,” she grumbles, face pinched in a rather magnificent scowl for so early in the morning, “Well, now they’re yours, I guess. Feel up to tamagoyaki?”

He nods, unsure of what else to say to that. She leaves him to eat in peace and go yell at somebody outside the house. Maybe it’s the dog. He likes the dog. Anko is frankly fucking terrifying but, on the other hand, he feels that maybe she’s trying to tell him that she’s not dating Iruka. Kakashi can’t really be sure, though, because Anko is neither subtle nor up front about it.

Kakashi eats the eggs and whatever else she feeds him, feels like a new person once he rolls his futon up and puts it away. He stops by the hospital--if only because he does not, under any circumstances, want the terrifying medic nin to track him down at home--and is begrudgingly given a nearly full bill of health, and advised to take it easy for a few days.

The few days are quite short because Kakashi hears, through the extensive grapevine of people who talk to the Hokage, that the chuunin exams are coming.

The Hokage confirms that they are happening, but they remain a few months away, so Kakashi doesn’t see any reason to change his methods. Hell, he might not enter them into the exams. They’ve only been genin for about half a year, and they take more missions and need to go to other teachers or nin for more specialized knowledge than Kakashi has, yes, but he still isn’t sure.

He remains unsure until one mission, one of the regular missions of hunting down the damn cat owned by the daimyo’s wife. It is going normal until Sakura gets impatient and downright irritated and slams her fist into the ground only a few feet from said slippery feline.

The ground explodes, sends the cat and Naruto into the air, and Sasuke catches them both.

To say that Kakashi is proud would be an understatement, but he is proud. And he decides that they are going to enter the exams the same day.

Everyone is short with nerves by the time the chuunin exams actually begin and Kakashi is likewise. He had received three conflicting assignments until he had talked to the Hokage--spurred, perhaps, by his encounter with Iruka outside of the Academy--but even after that he is busy enough that training with his kids exhausts him.

The first  _ real _ day is by far the worst, and Kakashi knows he will never forget the specific way his blood curdles when Iruka runs out of the Hokage’s office, looking absolutely terrified. The old man sends him after the teacher, but if he hadn’t Kakashi would have gone anyway. He doesn’t even really realize where he is running--into the house, up the stairs, to a locked door.

The barrier, when his hands hit it, stings like dozens of bees on his palms but he keeps his hands on it anyway, so that the instant it falls he can get into the room. Iruka’s chakra levels stay the same but something--something changes, Kakashi can’t say what. He finds himself saying Iruka’s name, calling out to him and stepping forward the instant the chakra wall disappears.

He doesn’t have far to walk because Iruka throws the door open, eyes red but intent, holds up a hand and says, insistent, “We need to go.”

Kakashi ignores the thrill along his spine when he takes the other man’s hand, lets him body-flicker them back into the Hokage’s office where Jiraiya and Anko are waiting.

He--he really gets the full story later, at the Wakahisa compound when Iruka and the kids are all asleep and Anko stops by in the middle of the night to pick up some clean clothes. She finds him sitting in the front room with a lamp and a book, awake despite the late hour.

“Ah, Hatake-san,” she says, nearly dropping the bundle of her clothes with surprise as she walks in, “I wasn’t expecting you to still be up.”

“Hn,” he can’t really bring himself to say anything because the exhaustion is quickly looming. He does look up from the book, sees in Anko’s face the same dark circles and pinched anxiety that Iruka’s face had held just hours before. “You should get some sleep,” Kakashi finds himself saying.

“Likewise,” Anko snorts, toes the edge of the tatami. “Iruka told you anything?”

He shakes his head, a minute movement. Admittedly, he had  _ hoped _ , but….

Anko sighs, sits and says, “He probably won’t tell you anything, he’s always been like that.”

Kakashi looks at her, knows that she can see the question that he wants to but cannot ask.  _ What the hell happened? _

“Sensei--that is, Orochimaru--” she corrects herself-- “he liked me because my skills were very similar to his, but he loved Iruka because Iruka was everything he wanted. I--I don’t really remember it all, it happened so long ago.

“But, Iruka was always his favorite, out of the three of us,” she says, and her voice is soft but pained when she continues, “He groomed him. The seals were his way of marking us, whether to use later or to control us with, his chakra left in us so one day he could find us again. I thought--I  _ hoped _ that Iruka hadn’t had a seal placed on him, but it was so long ago that it went dormant and there was no way to tell for sure, until today. And given that the memory wiping worked for him, there’s no knowing what else Orochimaru did to him.”

She speaks calmly, but Kakashi can feel the anxiety and anger rolling off her in waves. His stomach feels like it’s tying itself into knots when he considers what she said, but he forces that down, listens attentively when she speaks again.

“Please just,” Anko stands, sighs when she bends to pick up her clothing, “just keep him safe. He doesn’t deserve this.”

Kakashi nods, waits until she is out of the building before dousing the lantern and double checking the shutters and the very, very thin chakra wall he had built around the perimeter of the house hours before. Everything is secure, and despite knowing he needs sleep once Kakashi is laying in his borrowed futon he is wide awake again, and there is nothing to stop his mind from working.

There is still so much that he doesn’t know, that he doesn’t understand about Iruka, but the other man isn’t exactly open about his past. Kakashi does understand that (he would be a hypocrite otherwise) but he can’t shake the feeling that he needs to know more.

Though he does learn more, probably more from the things that Iruka does and doesn’t do than anything the man says. He goes about life as usual, though Kakashi sometimes finds him looking through old scrolls or sitting on the back walkway, staring off into the woods with vacant eyes. And it gives Kakashi a chance to learn some of the things that were not in his file. Iruka is from Kirigakure--that he pieces together from the pictures in the man’s room, one day when the dog needs rescuing from said room--and he doesn’t talk about his parents. At all. It seems to be an unspoken rule in the house that they are not talked about, but if what little Kakashi has gathered about his history is true, he understands why. Perhaps the most surprising thing that he learns, however, is that Iruka is a futton user.

Kakashi has--he has  _ never _ met a futton user, most of the people with kekkai genkai that he has encountered are the Hyuuga and Uchiha clans, and that one ANBU kid who could use mokuton. But Iruka doesn’t act like it’s anything special, refuses to show him any techniques when pestered. So Kakashi asks Anko about it--he actually  _ likes _ Anko, a lot--and she tells him that Iruka doesn’t generally use ninjutsu, typically relies on his taijutsu and genjutsu skills when taking missions and teaching.

He is a near-constant presence at the Wakahisa house over the one month break that separates the second and third portions of the exam. Sasuke has advanced far enough that Kakashi starts teaching him raiton, not yet his personal techniques but still ones that will help in the third stage fights. Sakura, who frankly doesn’t need more practice in anything, works on her medical ninjutsu, patching Naruto up when he returns from training with Jiraiya able to summon.

The last three days before the final stage of the exam are nerve-wrackingly peaceful, but Kakashi does not let his guard drop and neither does the Hokage. Through the gossip grapevine, which is trusted more than official statements at that point, the old man notifies everyone to be battle ready at the arena and elsewhere, to review emergency procedures and keep an eye out for crowds of strangers.

The day of the final stage dawns early and bright, and Sasuke is up stress-cooking when Kakashi returns from a last-minute briefing at the Hokage’s office. Kakashi sits at the table in the kitchen, if only in case the boy stabs himself, watches as he fries saury in one pan, tamagoyaki in another, and stirs miso in a third.

Sakura appears next, doesn’t acknowledge Kakashi but goes straight to Sasuke and hugs him, yawning and sniffing the food. She starts water for tea and water for rice as Naruto and Anko appear, sluggish. The woman collapses next to Kakashi at the table, and Naruto goes and wraps his arms around Sasuke. Unlike Sakura, though, he doesn’t let go. Sasuke doesn’t say anything, just works around it.

Iruka appears last, looking more awake than all of the children put together. He sits on Kakashi’s other side, pours them all tea when Sakura sets the pot down on the table. Iruka almost looks nervous, but Kakashi would bet money that he is more nervous to watch his kids fight other nin than he is about a potential attack by Orochimaru.

The kids leave half an hour before they do, and then it strikes Kakashi how much they have grown. Despite really knowing them and being in charge of them for half a year, they went from three pranksters who had terrifying tempers to three nin capable of passing the chuunin exams with complete--except in Sakura’s case, sometimes--control over their tempers.

The instant that they make it to their seats in the stands, Kakashi can feel that something is going to happen. He stays on edge for the entirety of Naruto’s fight, not because he is worried about the boy--Neji apparently does not realize that it is a bad idea to use the byakugan against a jinchuuriki, and he can hear Iruka snort when the boy is almost blinded from it--but because his instincts prove right before the next match can start.

A cloaked and masked nin sets off a smoke bomb and a wide-spreading genjutsu at the same time, a genjutsu that is easily dispelled by the nin but sends the remaining civilians to deep sleep. Kakashi heads to Gai before he really realizes what he’s doing, that he’s supposed to be watching Iruka, but he can feel Anko’s chakra near the man’s and knows that he will stay safe if she is with him.

They go after the cloaked man, and it is a tough fight only because they want to take him alive. In the midst of it he can tell where Iruka is because steam is rolling off of him, down from the roof of the stands to where Kakashi and Gai are fighting the cloaked man. Kakashi knows to avoid it, as does Gai, but the cloaked nin catches an arm in it. The steam eats at his glove and sleeve, and he is suitably distracted for Gai to twist a leg around his neck choke him into unconsciousness and Kakashi to break both of his legs. Just in case. Ibiki had stressed the importance of capturing prisoners.

After that their mission turns to rescue, specifically of the civilians that remain around the arena, either unconscious or injured enough that they couldn’t get to the tunnels behind the monument on their own. Kakashi doesn’t hear about Iruka collapsing until Anko finds him in the midst of the half-destroyed arena, Naruto passed out on his back and waiting for Gai and Kurenai to return with the other kids that took off after the one-tails.

The one-tails, who was collected with Naruto and taken to the hospital by Asuma. Kakashi is halfway between panic and pride when Anko tells him that Iruka is at the hospital and Orochimaru is dead and he tells her, in turn, that all of the genin are alright and Naruto stopped the one-tails from rampaging. She tears up at that, ruffles Naruto’s blonde hair before leaving when Ibiki calls her back up to the rooftop.

He catches a glance of her when he heads to the hospital, toeing at Orochimaru’s bloody, unmoved corpse. Iruka isn’t going to believe that she did that. Especially with the Hokage standing directly across from her.

Naruto is fine, just exhausted and somewhat chakra depleted, and once he is asleep in a room with Sasuke--still passed out, just wrapped in a blanket and seated on a chair--Kakashi breathes and searches for a familiar chakra signature.

Iruka is tucked into a single room a floor down from Naruto, watched over by a bleary-eyed Sakura, who is awake despite it being well into the night. She starts when he enters, three shuriken in one of her hands before it registers that it is Kakashi. He ruffles her hair, tells her that he’ll keep watch and that she needs sleep. She nods, curls at the end of Iruka’s bed and almost immediately falls asleep. After sitting, and only after sitting, Kakashi relaxes. There were some deaths--one or two civilians, and a couple ANBU who were caught on the city wall when Orochimaru’s summoned snake crushed it, but considering the scale of the attack, the hospital is not very full. He considers how sore his feet are, how he hasn’t eaten since that morning, and falls asleep.

Kakashi can faintly feel when Iruka awakes, and he finds himself flailing awake immediately after. Sakura, blessed, adorable Sakura, remains curled up on his bed, still asleep after single-handedly making sure that most of her year mates made it back to the village in one piece.

Iruka is surprisingly lucid and well enough to leave, if his student is to be believed (and he does believe her). The scary nurse confirms that, and after checking in on Naruto, Kakashi escorts him back to his house. He doesn’t really know what to do after that but stop in by the Hokage’s office, where Shinobu is arguing fiercely with three different nin and, when she notices him, abruptly stops.

“Kakashi-san,” she calls, blatantly ignoring Asuma trying to catch her attention, “the Hokage wanted you to talk to Ibiki, I think he’s downstairs.”

Kakashi can’t help the flinch that comes with her mention of Ibiki, but leaves quick enough that nobody else notices. The man, in all honesty, sort of terrifies him. And he is in the basement, looking through a mountain of papers and scrolls and, despite looking absolutely exhausted, chuckling gleefully to himself.

“Ah, Hatake-san,” he stops chuckling for a minute when Kakashi warily knocks on the door. “Shinobu must’ve sent you. The Hokage is letting me borrow you, temporarily.”

“Why,” Kakashi says before he can filter his brain, but Ibiki just laughs and leans back in his chair.

“I need an, ah,  _ errand _ runner, so to say. You were an ANBU captain and, temporarily, you are going to be reassigned an ANBU team,” he says, holding up his hands when Kakashi raises his visible eyebrow, “Hatake, you’ve always been one of the best--if not the best--tracker in the village. We need to find Orochimaru’s hidey hole.”

Though Kakashi doesn’t say it to anyone, he is almost relieved that he is out of the village as it starts rebuilding. He leaves three days after the attack, after nothing but glimpses of Iruka, unable to tell anyone that he is leaving.

The team he has with him is good, all of them veterans who don’t need to be told what to do, but it still takes them a week to find Orochimaru’s hideout in the Land of Sound. He was ordered to track the place down, then return to Konoha, leaving the ANBU squad to go through the hideout on their own. 

Kakashi returns from his mission and it is the middle of the day and he has been gone for two weeks and he is  _ tired _ . He gives Ibiki a very abbreviated version of what happened (no, the ANBU team killed people but I didn’t, yes, they’re staking out the research complex until you demolish it, here’s the scroll with more information, I’m leaving) and body-flickers away. Ending up in Iruka’s garden, which is perplexing but not exactly unwelcome. The shiba is there, sitting next to the koi pond and staring at him as if it was waiting for him to arrive.

His knees hit the soft, moss covered ground, and he figures this is as good a place as any to rest for a little while. The dog noses up to him, drapes itself over his midsection and promptly falls asleep, but Kakashi doesn’t mind, because he is asleep as well.

He feels fuzzy, not completely there when the dog digs its paws into his stomach to launch itself into the house and inadvertently wakes him. After pulling himself up and shaking out his shoulders, Kakashi tentatively follows his nose into the house. Eggplant miso, his favorite, if his senses aren’t lying to him.

And they aren’t.

Iruka is sitting at the table, a place set across from him for Kakashi, if the man’s expectant look is anything to go by. Kakashi sits, and they eat in silence. It isn’t uncomfortable and in fact it is the most comfortable Kakashi has felt in anyone’s presence in a long time.

They clean up together, moving in tandem in a way they learned the month preceding. Kakashi is more than happy to drink tea on the engawa with the other man after that, and he--

Well, it is something he has been thinking about for several weeks. Gai knows what he looks like, as do the medic nin at the hospital, and maybe the Hokage knows that he looks exactly like his father, but they are the only ones. Kakashi had donned a mask shortly after his father had committed suicide and kept it more out of habit than meaning, as the years went by. But Iruka never knew his father and that in itself is enough to make him question why he hasn’t done this before. Kakashi pushes that out of his mind, sits cross legged and tugs his mask down to sip his tea.

They watch the fireflies for a while, until the dog--Ayame, it’s name is  _ Ayame _ and when he learned that he had to take a minute--trots out and lays down between them. Iruka looks down at her. Kakashi looks down at her. He gives her a couple of pats and when he looks up Iruka is staring at him. He smiles slightly, gestures to his face and says, “I can--”

Iruka cuts him off, face red and  _ damn _ does Kakashi want to kiss him. He waves a hand, says, “It’s fine.” Then, after a pause he continues, “Fuckin’—just, Kakashi, you’re really hot and for the longest time I’ve been wondering why you’ve just been hanging around because Anko says you like me and I don’t know if I can believe anything that woman says, plus you’re, like,” he makes a vague gesture toward Kakashi, who is beginning to feel very concerned, “you’re Hatake Kakashi and other tha—”

“Hey,” Kakashi finally interrupts, “If it’s any consolation, you’re pretty hot, too.”  _ Smooth _ . He takes a drink of tea to steady himself, finds himself saying, “Which I guess is part of the reason why I’ve stuck around, other than the fact that I’m sort of in love with you.”

The confession was not planned but he isn’t embarrassed by it, is pleased when he doesn’t flush. But Iruka looks frozen, like he’s been turned into stone, and he finally manages to say, in a small voice, “What,” before he totters over to the rain barrel and shoves his head into it.

Kakashi is over next to him within a second, now genuinely concerned, and when Iruka turns and looks at him again he looks thoughtful. Kakashi grabs his hand, and it is a few moments before he says, “Sorry. I was checking to make sure I didn’t dream and or hallucinate that.”

Kakashi doesn’t mind the laugh that bubbles out of him at that. If he was in Iruka’s situation, he was sure he would feel the same. But then he thinks for a moment, decides that he is going to do this, and asks, “May I take you to dinner tomorrow?”

“Sure?” Iruka says, making it sound more like a question than it is. He looks slightly overwhelmed.

Kakashi squeezes his hands, smiles, says, “Seven, then, I’ll swing by. Thank you for dinner.”

He flickers away and is unable to stop the smile that is on his face. He tugs his mask back up and heads to the barbecue place to make a reservation.

They fall into a relationship with an almost effortless ease, and within four months Kakashi moves into the Wakahisa home with all of his plants and a load of his mother’s cookbooks to give to Sasuke. Iruka admits to him, one late night when they are wrapped together in their futon, that he cannot imagine the house without him or the kids or their ever-present friends.

The kids, troopers that they are, take it in stride that their sensei is dating their father. They don’t even notice when he begins leaving off the mask while at the house, though Kiba and Ino react with surprise, and just see that as meaning that they can give him as many hugs as often as they want. Sakura is very touchy, but not as much as Naruto and Sasuke, he quickly learns.

They settle in, but it is not long before Itachi appears to try and kidnap Naruto. Kakashi learns the hard way that he is no match for the younger man who has trained his sharingan for his entire life, and is left in the hospital for nearly a week. But that doesn’t not mean he isn’t involved in the decision that is made after that, the decision to send Naruto and Sasuke out of Konoha with Jiraiya. He sees how it breaks Iruka’s heart to agree, but they have no better way to keep the boys safe.

The time between when the boys leave and return is vast but not empty. He can take missions, some solo but some with Sakura, who annoys Tsunade until she acquiesces to that. It is a change to work with her and her alone, but Sakura is nothing if not vastly overpowered and able to hold her own. And--it’s a bit of a relief to have a medic nin with him, if only so that Iruka won’t look so heartbroken whenever he comes back injured.

Tsunade tries to convince him to take another genin team, but a few of the kids from Sakura’s year--including Sakura--achieve their jounin rank, and he convinces her in turn that they would be much better than him, and need the experience. When he tells Iruka the other man laughs for nearly five minutes, then finds Anko and Sakura and tells both of them as well, which results in a further fifteen minutes of mirth. So Hyuuga Neji, Inuzuka Kiba, and Aburame Shino have genin teams, and despite everything Kiba is probably the best jounin sensei out of the three of them.

But soon enough Hinata has a genin team too, and Sakura corners Kakashi to tell him that she is, under no circumstances, getting a genin team while Naruto and Sasuke are gone. He doesn’t exactly understand her reasoning, but the fact that she is Tsunade’s best student is enough to prevent the woman from giving her a team.

They receive letters every week, from one of the smaller frogs that Naruto and Jiraiya can summon. The letters say little, and the letters that Iruka sends back likewise contain little, but that trifle alone is enough to keep him sane when they start building the secondary house. Gai finds out and tells everyone in the village, it feels like, because they are constantly being gifted food and stuff for the new house.

Ibiki moves in shortly after the secondary house is finished, and Anko finds Kakashi in the kitchen, alone, one day, watering the spider plants hanging above the windows.

“How do you think Iruka would react if I asked Ibiki to marry me?” she asks, sounding rather desperate.

Kakashi turns to eye her, and yes, she is hungover. “He would refuse to help you plan the wedding.”

“Wh-what does that mean?” she demands, slouching over the table to grab a persimmon.

“He’ll be fine with it,” Kakashi says, leaning against the counter. His fingers hurt from how he’s been holding them around the pitcher. Maybe they have too many plants. “He just hates planning things like that.”

Which is why nobody is notified of the fact that they were married by the Hokage, even though it had happened months before. Kakashi only has one ring on the chain around his neck now, his mother’s ring, and on a similar chain around Iruka’s neck is his father’s ring. He could tell her, but he decides that she probably won’t kill Iruka if he is the one to break the news, but she will kill him.

Anko nods, still squinting at him in suspicion, and heads off to, presumably, find Ibiki or Iruka.

So, when the wedding comes around Iruka predictably does not help plan it. Shizune, on the other hand, volunteers, which means that she finds a lot of alcohol for them to drink.

And--Kakashi doesn’t want to get his hopes or Iruka’s up, but they sent a letter to Jiraiya with the date for the wedding and he knows that Jiraiya has at least that much presence of mind to show up. Plus, the old man would never say no to free alcohol.

Anko, he has to say, looks resplendent in her uchikake, a heirloom from her own mother with a rising phoenix embroidered on the back in gold and black thread, and the white kimono underneath is just as expensive looking. But Kakashi doesn’t really look at her, because Iruka had a new kimono made and it fits him  _ perfectly _ .

They don’t take a large role in the festivities, mostly just sit and watch, but Anko forces everyone to dance with her at least once and once Kakashi is in her arms she draws him close and mutters into his ear, “You and Iruka did not tell me.”

He can feel a cold sweat on the back of his neck, and he asks, “Tell you what?”

“That you--come on, Kakashi, you guys have been married for months and he only tells me a week ago?” she hisses, looking overjoyed despite her tone. “And then he swore me to secrecy. Have you told the kids?”

“Sakura,” he says, and she had just cocked her head, smiled blindingly, then hugged both of them and let it be. As soon as Naruto and Sasuke got back they were going to tell them.

“Right,” Anko stops, places her hands on his shoulders and stands on her toes to press a kiss to his forehead. “I love you, brother, even if I want to punch you a lot of the time.”

He has to smile at that, squeezes her in a tight hug and says, “I love you too, sister.”

He finds Iruka standing with Shizune and Gai and drinking sake after that, and joins them. Shizune and Gai disappear to go dance and Iruka leans against Kakashi. They take a moment to breathe, but then there is a shriek from near the gate, and he can see the pink of Sakura’s hair eclipsed by a familiar orange and Iruka grabs him.

“Iru-tou-san!” Naruto calls, dragging Sasuke who is still holding Sakura after him, through the crowd.

They are tall, so tall, and after Naruto hugs Iruka he grabs Kakashi and nearly breaks his back, then turns to Sasuke and shoves him into Kakashi’s face. Kakashi just laughs, and so does Sasuke, and when the young man gives him a hug as well he mutters, with just a note of mischievousness in his voice, “We’re back, dad.”

Kakashi doesn’t have the time to process that because they then run over to where Anko is trying to see over the crowd. Sakura gives him a knowing wink, though, and disappears back to where Ino is standing.

Iruka holds his hand for the rest of the reception, which finally winds to a close by midnight. Shizune recruits Gai and several others to help her clean up, and when everything is finally over it’s almost two in the morning and Kakashi’s face hurts from smiling so much.

He and Iruka don’t do more than pulling off their kimono and folding them before rolling into their futon. Ino, Sakura and Kiba are already asleep on the first floor, but Kakashi can faintly hear Naruto and Sasuke talking to each other as Iruka wraps an arm around his middle. And his heart--his heart feels so full it is like to explode.

They have a full week of peace with the boys home before, inevitably, disaster strikes. Team 7 heads to Sunagakure and they are too late. Sakura out of all of them is the most adamant in refusing to accept it, works tirelessly to create an antidote so that Kankuro will survive and they can hunt down the bastards that took Gaara. It is a surprise when Chiyo helps them, because her eyes are so cold when she looks upon Sakura and him, but by the time that Sakura appears with the old woman on her back at the field that the rest of them are waiting in, she pats the pink-haired girl on the arm to let her down near Gaara’s too-still body, where Sakura kneels.

Her face is forced blank when she looks to the old woman, “He’s dead.”

Chiyo wastes no time, ignores the arrival of another team of Suna nin, kneels down at the Kazekage’s side and begins to send chakra into his body. It’s not just chakra, though, Kakashi realizes as Sakura moves to assist her and snaps for Naruto to help them. She is giving the boy her life.

There is nothing he can do at that point but stop the Suna nin from getting too close, even Temari, who stops trying to get past him when she sees Chiyo and the other two, hands lit blue and green and gold. The young woman almost breaks, because she knows what that means, and she turns from Kakashi to Kankuro, tells him to keep everyone back.

When all is said and done, Naruto is fine, able to help Gaara stand when the other has his life returned, but Sakura passes out a mess of tears and dried blood. Chiyo--Chiyo doesn’t stand, doesn’t move again. Kakashi carries Sakura back to Sunagakure, rebuffs any offers by the Suna nin to let someone else carry her. Sasuke has to do the same for Naruto, when the boy’s legs give out halfway back to Suna.

They stay for only another day, at which point Sakura is recovered enough for them to return to Konoha with Gai’s team. Temari and Gaara see them off, and the Kazekage takes Naruto aside for a word while his sister thanks them, once again.

They are all pensive on the trip back, Naruto especially so. Kakashi would worry but--there is something about Naruto that just makes him believe that the boy will be fine through this.

Once back in the village they first go to the Hokage Tower, where Gai and his team say goodbye, and then are sent to the hospital to talk with Tsunade. She is fresh out of surgery when they get there, though she managed to change her scrubs, and her eyes are bloodshot.

“Please give me good news,” she says, without preamble, as she works through a cup of black coffee.

“The Kazekage is safe,” Kakashi starts, “But he was killed by Akatsuki.”

Her brown eyes flicker from Kakashi to each of his students in turn, and her lips are tight when she nods. “Get a report to me tomorrow. Gods willing, this won’t happen here.”

Sasuke flinches at that, grabs onto Naruto’s sleeve as they all flicker, as a unit, home.

Iruka is waiting outside, not looking expectant but just waiting. Kakashi didn’t realize how much he missed the other man until he sees him, and the first thing he does is wrap his arms around him. Iruka breathes a sigh at that, relief releasing some of the tension in his shoulders.

“The Kazekage is alright,” Kakashi says, nosing his neck as Sakura goes inside, still sluggish from her chakra being drained.

Sasuke has the truth of it, though, when he mutters, “I’m not sure alright is the right word.” He and Naruto go inside, and Kakashi doesn’t miss the meaning in their tightly intertwined fingers.

Iruka gently pushes him away, looks at him with a raised eyebrow. Kakashi can’t help the sigh at that. He tugs down his mask and kisses his husband’s nose, “It’s--it’s complicated.”

He lets the kids tell Iruka what happened, when they are done with dinner and sitting in the garden. Iruka is sitting on his feet, back pressed against his shins as they take turns narrating what occurred during the mission. Anko leaves looking pinched, and when Ino and Kiba arrive to drag Sakura to bed her face bears similar worry. Naruto and Sasuke leave after that, still holding hands, and Iruka and Kakashi watch them leave with, Kakashi imagines, identical expressions of concern on their faces.

When they are alone, Iruka tips his head back and Kakashi presses a hand to the side of the man’s face when he asks, “Are you worried?”   
Kakashi can’t help but sigh, “Always.” He pauses, looks up at the sky and the trees and the fireflies, looks back down at Iruka, speaks quieter, in reassurance for himself as much as the other man, “They’ll be fine. We have to believe that.”   
“I know,” Iruka says, and Kakashi allows himself to be tugged down so their lips can meet. “I know.”   
  



End file.
